Selected Press

Interviews

Sound & Recording Magazine (Japan)

The Quietus (UK)

Tanzgemeinschaft (Belgium)

Sound & Recording Magazine (Japan)

Chain D.L.K. (USA)

Stray Landings (UK)

CINRA (Japan)

CYCLIC DEFROST (Australia)

TOKAFI (Germany)

Reviews

The Sounds within aspire to the dreamtime electronica of Lawrence English, Biosphere, BJ Nilsen and plenty of others on Touch. Onodera doesn't pretend that his field recording techniques enjoy the pristine fidelity of Chris Watson or a Douglas Quin, rather his mottled sounds embrace the abstraction produced through contact microphones and consumer-grade dictation mics. Sustained drones from his pump organ buttress the quiet hypnosis of these field recordings, thanks to the instrument's woozy oscillations. - THE WIRE (UK)

The three albums he churned out in 2007 alone would have fueled the career of other artists for at least a decade. The accuracy of his vision is astounding: In the best of Japanese traditions, his compositions are the most immediate realisation of a single idea imaginable. Onodera is constructing a greater picture from these small-scale miracles as well. As the market becomes saturated, artists like Yui Onodera are thus becoming ever-more important. His work always goes that one decisive step deeper. - TOKAFI (Germany)Great album of processed instrumental drones by Yui Onodera. I’d be happy to align Yui Onodera with a number of other genius Japanese solo creators such as Ryoji Ikeda who are capable of creating fully-realised, self-sufficient universes in sound, then leaving them for others to explore and chart while they set off across the horizon in their strange sky-boats. And he creates a world more tolerant of human passions than the strictly-demarcated tones of Ryoji Ikeda, that ruthless architect of enormous sci-fi virtual palaces in digital sound. - THE SOUND PROJECTOR (UK)Imprints such as Touch, 12k and Baskaru have made their names with music such as this, but the constructs of Tokyo’s Onodera possess enough poise and finesse to rank them alongside works by Christian Fennesz, Lawrence English and Ethan Rose. Like those aforementioned artists, Onodera is a sculptor in total control of his materials, deploying the timbre and tempo (or absence thereof) of a minimalist palette for maximum effect. - RECORD COLLECTOR (UK)Onodera has created a set of seemingly minimal sound structures out of complex interactions that will effortlessly transform any room, while the details of their intriguing inner architectures only begin to become apparent through focused listening. - THE QUIETUS (UK)Onodera’s highly processed use of field recordings, electronics and guitar constructs these electro-acoustic environments which elicit and reflect a meditative state. Yui Onodera clearly demonstrates here his ability to create impressive sonic effect with a quiet presence of subtle variations and control. - CYCLIC DEFROST (Australia)A master at extracting audio gold from lead, Onodera can make the thinnest octave resonate brighter than a thousand supernova. Operating at bracingly abstract levels, and using only bare essentials (piano, voice, and processed electronics) he constructs Ikeda-like oscillations that appear to leach out of the universe’s atomic structure.- SIGNAL TO NOISE (USA)"Suisei" is a gorgeous album of darkly textured drones with parallels to Thomas Koner's isolationist compositions or Keith Berry's precious deconstructions. Wind, rain, and water all make themselves known in the collection of field recordings, as does the pump organ, which reveals itself in harmonic sustained tones with a spectral timbre (e.g. Niblock, Radigue, Chalk, etc.). These crunching textures situate humbly next to a hypnotic wash of compressed static and melancholic shadowy drone, which sublimely shift into a slippery crescendo of grey massed sound. Very, very well done! - AQUARIUS RECORDS (USA)生楽器と電子音を繊細な手つきで共存させ、澄み切った音色を現出させている。審美的で透徹したサウンドスケープは坂本龍一とフェネスの共演作も彷彿させる。 - CD JOURNAL (Japan)アンドレイ・タルコフスキー『ストカー』の全編に漂っていたような質感にも似た、どこまでも思慮深い空気を纏った音響作品。非常に緊張感に満ちた音像を保ち、最後まで淀む事なく聴かせる傑作。 - STORE15NOV (Japan)